Posted
by
msmash
on Wednesday March 30, 2016 @11:00AM
from the growing-windows-userbase dept.

At its developer conference, Build 2016, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that Windows 10, the latest version of its desktop version which it released on July 29 last year, is now being used on over 270 million active computers worldwide. "Windows 10 is off to the fastest adoption of any release ever," said Terry Myerson, executive vice president for Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. The company also announced that it will be releasing Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer for all Windows 10 users free of charge.

No kidding. To call this the 'fastest adoption of any release ever' is about as valid (and laughable) as some authoritarian dictatorship holding 'free elections' where there's only one candidate, and you're detained if you don't go and vote for him, then claiming a 'landslide victory' with 'record voter turnout'. It's a sham, it's a joke, it's a complete fabrication, it's utter bullshit, and it means NOTHING.

I fully agree. And what disturbs me most is the plain face that they use to say such a thing, as if it were absolute truth. I'm afraid of people who can lie with such ease and so much scorn from the intelligence of others.

No kidding. To call this the 'fastest adoption of any release ever' is about as valid (and laughable) as some authoritarian dictatorship holding 'free elections' where there's only one candidate, and you're detained if you don't go and vote for him, then claiming a 'landslide victory' with 'record voter turnout'. It's a sham, it's a joke, it's a complete fabrication, it's utter bullshit, and it means NOTHING.

Some of these "elections" are more of a census than an election. Sometimes this is misinterpreted when the language is translated to English. In a country with only one main political party, obviously "election day" is going to have an expected result. The real political mechanisms happen behind closed doors, just like they do in the US. The US and some of these authoritarian dictatorships are really not that different.

I wonder what MS is doing with the mysterious info they collect. Is every web page I visit in Chrome reported back to them? (And are they reported to Google? I turned off every option I could find, and that web sotes on the subject said to do, but you never know.)

I think it's funny that in spite of all the nagging, trickery, and even (in some cases) forced installs of the damned thing, they only got 270m devices to actually do it out of what, billions globally?

Fewer support calls from development shops trying to make stuff work with 6 versions of Windows. Faster deprecation path for Windows 7 and 8. Broader access to the App Store. The ability to just make IE12 work with Windows 10 and tell everyone else Windows 8.1 doesn't support the new Web standards and may fuck up with your Web application.

Ubuntu has two active LTS and a third lagging behind every other year; they have a 9 month support cycle for the 6 month release. That means you get 5 years to update an LTS, and 3 months to update anything else. They only ever have a maximum of three LTS and two non-LTS to support, and a minimum of two and one; there's always a three-month span of time where any and all resources devoted to supporting an old release are reassigned to working on a new release, and there's a one-year span of time where any and all resources devoted to supporting a new LTS are directed toward the next *two* releases (a lead-up and an LTS).

Do you think Microsoft wants to support Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 2008r2 server, Windows 2012, and Windows 2015 for the next 15 years? Do you think they want to backport the app store and Windows Container Services, or get called out for heavily advertising these features while 80% of their OS products don't actually support them?

If I were Microsoft, I'd be pushing for a consolidated platform with a Windows core (2015, 2018, etc.) running a Windows desktop (Windows 10) or a Windows server (Windows Server 2015) application suite. There would be one system with one set of core services and libraries; and there would be applications available on each type of installation. If you write it for Windows 10 Desktop, it runs on Windows 10 Server; if you want to use local AD or HyperV and that's a Server feature, maybe it doesn't run on Windows 10 Desktop. Either way, what you're talking about is software, and not potential compatibility issues between operating systems.

I'd also have a campaign to compact my profile to two core releases. I don't want to support 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2018 software while I'm releasing 2020 software.

If that means getting my users to upgrade to the latest and greatest for free, then so be it. The cost savings for getting all these people moved up will offset the lost profits, especially when you consider none of these people were ever going to get Windows 10 until they got new machines--which they're going to do at likely the same pace anyway. The actual lost income from giving the damn OS away is going to be fractional, possibly too small to measure, and the total cost is only going to amount to the bandwidth.

Did you think it would cost MS anything? Sometimes a free gift really is free: the person giving it to you has absolutely nothing to gain by withholding it, and nothing to lose by giving it. It may or may not have actually cost them anything; it might have cost them a lot and turned out both useless and impossible to resell. We like to think of things in terms of us getting stuff, and not in terms of what the other guy is losing or gaining from it; so of course one man's garbage becomes another man's treasure.

I'll be honest with you: If they weren't actively installing spyware along with their gods-be-damned OS, I'd probably just scratch my head at the rest of their antics and move on. But that's what they're doing: They're actively spying on users, taking control of their computers, forcing updates, and generally disregarding the private ownership rights of end users. THAT IS THE PROBLEM: Taking away CHOICE. I don't CARE what their reasons are, I don't want anyone taking away my right to choose. Luckily I have choice, still: I can run something other than Windows. Of course the news we see lately also points towards Microsoft infiltrating the FOSS community to annex and subvert Linux as well. Microsoft wants to own ALL computers and have NO other choices that they don't directly control. THEY CAN GO TO HELL. I'd rather have NO computing devices at ALL than have anything forced on me.

I'll be the devil's advocate for just a minute. Bear with me.You say Microsoft, with Windows 10, is taking choice away. I'd say that all those people who keep running Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 did, in fact, choose. So the choice is not taken away, but left to only those who do it consciously. Everyone else is either a conscious adopter (as I am) or simply don't know any better (vast majority).The definition of spyware, then, is somewhat elastic. What you might consider spyware, I might not. Again, by choice. I

For the Average Joe, Microsoft "forcing updates" onto their machine might actually be beneficial

The operative word there is 'FORCING'.

Also your 'average Joes', 'couldn't care less', because they don't know any better. They don't understand what's being done. If a crook is stealing from people who don't even know something is being stolen from them, does that make it any less of a crime? Rhetorical question, because a crime is a crime. Microsoft is making choices for people and taking data from people who (assuming your 'Average Joes' again) don't understand or even know what's being done. It's still

...If that means getting my users to upgrade to the latest and greatest for free, then so be it....

Therein lies the flaw in your logic.

.
Windows 10 is not free. The cost is the data harvesting that Microsoft is doing to Windows 10 users.

No longer is the person using Windows a Windows user. With the advent of Windows 10, the person using Windows 10 is a product, information to be gathered and sold.

While I agree with your comments about the need to consolidate the various versions of Windows, that multiplicity of versions is Microsoft's own fault. It was Microsoft who wanted "product differentiat

Presumably the valuable info they're collecting is all the same stuff Google's been able to collect for years based on having a search engine people actually wanted to use. Some of us may not like having given this stuff to Google, but at least we did it knowingly and mostly willingly in exchange for a service we most definitely wanted. Microsoft wants to be able to generate an ad revenue stream like Google's, but their search is compromised by a smaller user base. Though, by now their user base must be

Dear Microsoft Social Media representative: you hit all the right talking points, but you left out the issue of consent. All of these issues are from Microsoft's point of view. They make MS's life easier. What about us, the people who actually use the damn things? Did you assholes even bother to ask us what we wanted?

If you're not a paid shill, you should be. You write well, hit all the main points, and are shockingly pro-Microsoft. They're a horrid evil corporation that spies on its users, WTF? Why would anyone do this in their spare time?

Good luck getting Joe Q. Taxpayer to tell you what he wants.MS didn't create Windows 10 for the 1%ers of the IT world (not by wealth but by knowledge). They created Windows 10 for the rest of the world - and while neither of us agrees with their practice, you have to give it to them: it worked.

You can wrap it any way you will, but either you're stuck supporting old cruft or you stop supporting it and break existing apps that rely on that cruft. Linux distros do this quite a lot, every release they ship a new set of applications and what used to work for you last release in KDE3 now doesn't work - or at least the same way - in KDE4. Both are supported but they didn't promise to take you from A to B in a smooth ride with no regressions. That's why we have releases in the first place and don't go on an eternal rollercoaster of rolling changes. That's why we have LTS releases even though every upgrade is free.

Win10 has pretty much said fuck that, we're strapping you in and you're coming with us where Microsoft wants to go. They make UI changes you don't like? Tough. They break some of your existing software? Tough. There's no staying behind, no picking and choosing unless you pay extra and even then in a very limited fashion unless you're an enterprise. Forget having legacy software that continues to work, anything without a running support agreement you're likely to be fucked by Win10 sooner or later.

It seems you really don't get it, why am I holding on to my Win7 install when the upgrade is free? Same reason I might not want to upgrade from an LTS release, it's about predictability. I know that for about four years more my desktop will stay just the way it is. If I upgrade, I have no idea where Win10.x will be in 2020. I know Microsoft doesn't care about that. Or rather, I know Microsoft wants to get rid of that so the next time they pull a Win8 you're along for the ride whether you want to or not. It's not a free gift, it's a free trojan horse.

All this would be justified if they were not trying to force integrated spyware in the operating system itself, trying to force the use of "apps" that the developer of the same should kill himself with shame and with an interface that makes me sick to see so much usability disaster. The idea of a one core product is good, but the Windows 10 is too much a piece of shit to be able to hold the position of core system.

There's a lot of talk about Microsoft spyware, but no substantiation. People pull out EULAs and talk about what Cortana does when you ask it to search the 'net for you, and they pull up things saying Windows hit 6,000 DNS requests in one day, and have no explanation of what or how there's end-user monitoring.

Linux has an awful lot of network activity when idle; I think Debian and Slackware are spying on end users...

Right -- but if users love it -- especially when they love it versus your next two versions -- why not support it for the next 20 years? Its not like the kernel of Windows 7 and Windows 10 are radically different. Fundamentally the biggist issue with every Windows upgrade after 98 (where we went to Win2k, and then WinXp, and then...) is that there were no compelling REASONS for users to upgrade.

Support Windows 7 until it has 5% Windows market share, and (as a company Microsoft should) then challenge yourse

Do you think Microsoft wants to support Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 2008r2 server, Windows 2012, and Windows 2015 for the next 15 years?

No, but I do think they've maintained their position as the dominant desktop OS provider because they gave serious consideration to long-term support and backward compatibility.

No business or other large organisation wants to upgrade platform software every few months or even every couple of years. It's dead time that brings huge disruption, significant costs, and relatively little benefit.

No software developer wants to rewrite their entire product every few months or even every couple of years, for the sam

In the sucker's defense, he may not have even been aware that the Trojan horse was getting in the gate until he woke up one morning and found that his gates had opened automatically without asking him.

Are you f'ing kidding? Right now I am looking at that damn 'UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 10' popup on all three of my computers. I've gone into the registry to remove it but it keeps coming back. Several times a day this thing interrupts my work. I dread accidentally clicking the wrong button and having Windows 10 force-fed down a feeding tube onto my computer Guantanamo style.

Also, turn off automatic updates to avoid a repackaged version of the thing sneaking back in. Microsoft is not to be trusted.

There are many other updates to remove also. The Windows update agent has had continual version pushes every month and has the backend to automatically download the windows update files to your computer. Telemetry updates are now tracking your Windows 7 even if you opted out of the customer experience improvement program.

Just to be clear, the right button is that little "x" on the corner of the window. If you click install later, IT WILL INSTALL LATER. This is how it "force installs" onto computers, by technically receiving permission from the user to do so.

If you want that to go away, and Microsoft's own instructions (that include editing the registry) don't work, use GWX Control Panel. It's worked for me on Windows 8.1 and 7.

Instead of news media reporting huge Windows 10 adoption numbers, they should take the forced installs into account and make headlines that tell it like it is: "Non-Consensual Windows 10 Installs: Is Microsoft Guilty of Mass Computer Rape?"

To start with, disabling tasks under Task Manager or Scheduler doesn’t work, since the GWX process has a kernel hook which checks every so often and relaunches itself if it’s not already running. To me that sounds like a BHO. If you try and disable the scheduled tasks the system tells you you’re not allowed to do that, not even under full admin privileges. That’s malware behaviour. Likewise if you try and delete

1, 2, 3: I own and operate my work computer. I'm surely not the only one.

4: Hoggoth said nothing about not liking Windows. Hoggoth said he didn't want to be upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version of Windows against his wishes. Again, not the same thing.

5: That may well be, but that issue is completely orthogonal to this discussion.

6: Again, completely orthogonal to the current discussion. Neither Hoggoth nor anyone else I'm aware of has claimed that they were forced by Microsoft to install Windows 10 over a completely different operating system such as Linux or Mac OS X.

Why you are so anxious to defend Microsoft's upgrade trickery while vilifying users is anybody's guess. But I can make a couple of good ones.

Microsoft doesn't need to pay anyone. The numbers speak for themselves. The customers made their choice. Nobody boycotted Microsoft's product over the Windows 10 upgrade. You nerds have been defeated. Move your lardy ass to your little corner and rock yourself back and forth crying over the injustices of the world while the rest of us carry on with our lives.

Not much of a choice if the upgrade is performed automatically or if the user is misled.

Setting the update system to auto-install security fixes is a reasonable default for the average computer user who doesn't know (or want to know) any better and just wants their computer to work.

Shoving out non-security updates under the security update label is a horrible breach of trust and a line they should never have crossed. Pushing an entire new OS as an update that would be automatically installed by default isn't far behind in the scummy moves list.

The average computer user should know better than installing things automatically.I think you mean auto-install security fixes is a reasonable default for 'computer literate' people a.k.a able to turn on the computer and click every ok/next they see.

No, they should know better than to install things intentionally - that's how most trojans and malware gets installed after all. Their IT guy should better than to leave them without security updates, or to count on them to intervene in any way.

For the vast majority of people out there a computer is little more than an internet appliance. And as mechanical appliance manufacturers long since learned, any maintenance beyond wiping it down with a wet rag needs to be done automatically or it won't occur at al

Yep right here. Had a computer that came with Windows 8. Windows 10 is a great improvement on that piece of shit.Shame the computer doesn't run Windows 7 but I did consent and voluntarily install Windows 10. If you don't give a shit about privacy (and on that specific machine I don't), then underneath it's actually quite decent.

You also have to take into account that the titles states that "Windows 10 now runs..." I have a Lenovo laptop in my house on which Windows 10 update was installed, but to say it runs would be an exaggeration.

I have contributed over a dozen machines to their count that aren't running Windows 10. I upgrade the system from a user-data-free Windows 7 disk image just to lock in the "one year Windows 10 free upgrade", which puts the computer configuration in the Microsoft databases of activated systems. The computer will then be automatically activated over the Internet if Windows 10 was needed in the future, even from a fresh install.

I see.. so if a con-man tricks you into giving him all your money, it's your fault? If a kid walks up to a van parked on the street that has 'FREE CANDY' painted on the side, and he gets kidnapped and molested, it's the kids' fault it happened? A woman out for the evening gets attacked and raped, and it's her fault for 'dressing like a whore' or whatever half-assed reason you might give? Are we embracing victim shaming now? Is that what's going on here?

When you throw it in people's faces every chance you get, of course it's going to take off. Doubly so if it's free. They basically ran the "HEAD ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!" version of an upgrade campaign. Also...

HEAD ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!
HEAD ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!
HEAD ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

I turned off the telemetry and anti-privacy stuff, but FWIW, I actually like Win10. I had Win7 before. I'd used clonezilla to make an image if anything went belly up, and then did the typical online upgrade - I had no issues, except just one that took me a few days to realize: MS Office 2010 starter (Word and Excel only) wouldn't run, claiming it's incompatible with Windows10. I looked online and found some conflicting info, but ultimately there's a KB and a patch for Office 2010 available (released arou

The real question is, will it finally be safe to use windows update after the one year deadline has passed on the free herpes infection? My guess is it will be extended indefinitely, "due to its great success and reception!"

Why does this statement make me nervous...? It really hints at the possibility that updates will not be free at some point in the future...

There's no pleasing some people. First they complain about the cost of Windows, then they complain when it's free and even takes the effort out of upgrading by doing it for you, and now there's complaints about it potentially not being free in the future? I thought you'd be thankful for that prospect.

It may be a shiny new operating system, but it's plagued with the same old problems.

A new Skylake laptop was brought to me with Windows 10 installed. It took the owner less than a day to download some executable which installed malware (mysearchresults) that ferreted its way into many corners of the system and rendered it useless. The system came pre installed with McAffee something or other which failed to recognize the executable as a virus even though it declared that it had scanned it.

I am Satya Nadella of the Microsoft. Your computer will be assimilated. We will erase your biological and technological distinctiveness and impose our own. Your computer will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

This is a marketer comment if I've ever heard one. Considering the use of the word "share" in this context, your hyper-positivity, and your only other slashdot contribution being a link last week to some marketing story, I'm going to go out on a limb here and accuse you of being a marketer. I'm not calling you a shill, but I'm also not *not* calling you a shill.

Sharing is a perfectly reasonable term to use in this case. It's better than when people claim they're "sharing" music which they never bought, never had the rights to give/share/whatever to anyone else and have no intention of ever paying someone for the work they did.

In this case Microsoft has the rights to all the information regarding Windows 10 (assuming they're not talking out their ass) and have decided to release the information which they have gathered at whatever expense to their company.

Forced updates that also force the upgrade to Windows 10 are a great way to boost adoption rates. Also a great way to destroy what infinitesimal amount of good will and reputation you have left Microsoft. I put the emphasis on infinitesimal.

All my computers still run Windows 7 and are protected with GWX Control Panel. One of the major consequences of MS forcing updates and upgrades on people is that people who still have Windows 7 have all shut off automatic updates. Good go

Don't rush to upgrade without explicitly checking your hardware compatibility, especially on your video and networking cards. (doubly so if you don't have another computer to get online for troubleshooting) Several common cards (including a lot of common Intel integrated video cards) don't have W10 drivers, and the upgrade won't detect that before installing. I managed to get the Windows 8 video drivers working on my girlfriend's laptop after she upgraded (sorry, I've forgotten the details), but it was a n

Yeah, "Free" is a very subjective term here. Google is free by the same definition. But the so-called free copies of Windows 10 are not like buying something and it being yours, and owned by you (while also being far less encumbered by ads, telemetry and data mining). I own my copies of Windows 7, but MS "delivers" Windows 10 as a "service". It is their decision to make, but I will stick with Windows 7 because that is my decision now that I have shut auto-updates off (which had always been on with my comput

>I put the emphasis on infinitesimal.So, basically you're saying they've destroyed nothing of value in exchange for rapidly eliminating the cost and headaches of maintaining several older versions of Windows. Sounds like there's no downside for them... why are you surprised?

It's only hypocritical if you're also implying that Linux is considerably better. You can be perfectly consistent and point out that ALL OS distributors doing such things suck, or even ignoring the competition entirely because you just don't care about anything except Windows. "This Microsoft maneuver sucks" in no way implies that anybody else is better, any more than "this politician is corrupt" implies that any of their peers are honest.

That said, I've heard of comparatively few recent problems with clean installs of systemd based distros. And I'm not at all surprised that trying to shoehorn it into an in-place upgrade causes problems for so many people. System and infrastructure initialization has always been a bit finicky on Linux, trying to replace it on a live system brings to mind completely replacing the foundation of a house while you're living in it - no matter how good the new foundation, you're likely to have issues.

Then there's the fact that systemd is still rather immature - the old startup and infrastructure modules took HOW many years of tinkering to get as stable as they are? So there's bound to be corner cases not yet properly handled by SD. Still, I can understand the motivation to adopt it - maintaining and updating that web of crusty old support structure is a huge draw on precious manpower, by switching to SD they essentially outsource most of that work to a centralized project where the workload and benefits can be shared by all. Yes, it would absolutely be nicer for us users if they had waited until systemd were fully mature to make the switch - but it's like buying an X.0 version of any program. or a new version of Windows in the first couple of years: it's going to have issues that can only be found and fixed with the benefit of widespread adoption and testing. Sucks for users who get stuck as "beta testers" during the maturation pains, but almost everyone benefits in the long run. And there's a chicken and egg problem as well: if the big distros wait too long to adopt it they risk it losing steam, and then they'll be stuck maintaining the old, crusty, increasingly overtaxed labyrinths themselves indefinitely. Could someone have made a better alternative to systemd? Absolutely! But the key point is that nobody did. Or at least nobody else succeeded in building enough momentum to become a credible option.

Well, there's my troll-chow ration for the month all used up. Good thing it's almost April.

This post should not have been moderated as Troll. These are opinions with validity, whether or not the reader agrees. The moderation of Troll should only be used when someone is actually trying to start flame wars.

I'm a bit surprised. Not that the computers are working but that a 250+ organization has already rolled out 10. Most IT departments of size tend to wait, but I work for myself these days so maybe it's rolling out more quickly. In any case, in an environment where you have on-site IT staff the problems are less significant. Windows 8 introduced numerous changes from Win 7. The settings are now split between the control panel and the new settings interface. One of my users couldn't figure out how to setup th